03 - Three Odd Balls (14 page)

I smiled at the screen. “Look at Bee Bee.”

“You found him?” Buster called out as he and Louise raced toward Paradise. Wilson nudged me, and I closed my laptop.

I noticed the binoculars dangling from my agent’s neck. “Is he still missing?”

Buster whined and raced off, calling Bee Bee’s name.

“We’ll take that as a yes?” Wilson asked Louise.

She waved her arms and acted frantic, even by Geez Louise standards. “Faye was right to be concerned this morning! Bee Bee is gone! Vanished! Poof!”

She flung her hands about, making poof-gestures, and managed to bop Buster in the nose as he emerged from a thicket of ferns.

“He’s been lost all day,” he informed us once he let go of his nose.

We asked for the details of the disappearance and got a lesson on the parrot’s routine. Apparently Pono had established the rules decades earlier, and Buster had continued to follow them. As such, Bee Bee was always safely tucked away in his cage every night before the evening dinner rush.

“His cage gets covered up,” Louise explained. “Birds need a dark, quiet place like that to sleep. Buster’s been teaching me. But the cover was off this morning, and Bee Bee was gone! Poof!” she added, and Buster jumped back a step.

Wilson checked his watch. “And you’re only now starting to look?”

“Well yes.” Buster hung his head and wrung his hands. “Some mornings Bee Bee gets impatient and lets himself out. He can open the cage door. And he likes to drag the night cover around the balcony.”

“So maybe his disappearance isn’t that unusual?” I asked.

“But not for this long, Jessica!” Louise flapped her arms, and Buster jumped back yet again. “He’s run away! Flown the coop!” With that, she was off and running, scurrying around the perimeter of our porch, her binoculars poised at every tree, shrub, and flower.

Meanwhile Buster became engrossed with something at his feet. He bent down to pluck a few tiny weeds between the stepping stones.

“Bee Bee, Buster!” Louise shouted as she rounded the porch.

He jumped to attention, dropped the weeds, and hastened off toward the ukulele players, all the while calling his bird’s name.

Louise caught my eye. “Poof!” she said and disappeared in the opposite direction.

***

“Heebie jeebies,” Wilson said firmly when he saw the look I gave him. He pointed past the manicured garden, and I wrinkled my nose at the jungle beyond Paradise.

“I suppose we would have to go off the beaten path if we helped out?”

“They don’t need us anyway.” He leaned over and opened my computer. “Sounds like Bee Bee’s done this before. He’ll find his way home.”

I remained concerned, but Wilson tapped at the mouse pad until the screen came back on, and I was reminded of another missing creature—Derrick Crowe—who was “talented and edgy” according to that article from the LA newspaper.

“Chef Crowe has the high-strung personality so important to any great artist,” we read. “He insists on only fresh, local ingredients.”

“He was localvore before the word even existed,” I said.

“Davy was cutting-edge, too.” Wilson pointed to the passage about the bartender, and we read about the Pele’s Melees.

“Containing six fresh fruit juices and untold quantities of vodka and rum, these cocktails are not to be missed. Be sure to admire the little gold umbrellas, and Davy might refill your glass on the house.”

I looked up from the screen. “It sounds like this reporter was charmed by all the Wakilulani guys—Bee Bee, Pono, Davy, Derrick.”

“Derrick, like in the old chef?” A bathing trunk-clad Chris Rye appeared at the edge of our porch. “Bethany says he disappeared off the face of the earth after Ki fired him”

“Old news,” I mumbled under my breath as Chris sat down next to his father.

I closed the computer and asked what else Bethany had said, but Chris was already distracted. He picked up the clipboard on the coffee table and started shuffling through the pages. “This is your mother’s?” he asked. “She told me what you guys did today.”

Wilson pointed to the notes Tessie had loaned him and explained what she had learned, but Chris was only half-listening. I couldn’t blame the kid—he had discovered my mother’s drawings tucked away beneath her notes.

“I didn’t know Miss Tessie’s an artist,” he said, and I had to smile. My mother is far too humble to ever claim such status, but she does draw. And as Louise would say, her pictures are fantastical.

“She complains her hand’s becoming too unsteady,” I said. “But she’s still pretty good at pen and ink.”

“Really good.” Wilson leaned over to once more admire the drawings he had found after our lunch at The Nettles Corner Bistro.

I stood up and hovered behind the two Ryes, and we chuckled at Mother’s rendition of Louise’s first solo swim. Chris was also most amused by Tessie’s drawing of me fighting the waves and/or my surfboard. And all three of us were charmed by her drawing of Bee Bee playing with the fake daisy on my flip flop.

“He’s missing,” Wilson said, but Chris had already been informed. He assured us he was on the lookout.

I was busy feeling forlorn about poor Bee Bee when Chris flipped to the next page, and we admired a most forlorn Buster. Mother had certainly captured the man’s essence. The younger Okolo brother was wringing his hands and looking altogether anxious about who knows what. No picture of Ki yet, but she had managed a sketch of the Hoochie Coochies and their ukuleles. We listened to a few bars of “String of Pearls” as Chris flipped to the next page.

“There’s Dad hanging ten.” He pointed. “But he hasn’t done that yet.”

“Yet,” Wilson repeated.

“Mother does most of her drawings from up here,” I explained and tapped my temple. “From her memory or imagination.”

“And here’s me.” Chris flipped to the last page.

Wilson groaned. “You need to stop hanging out in bed with old ladies.”

“You’re one to talk.”

I resisted the urge to smack the kid upside the head, and took another gander at my mother’s portrayal of Christopher Rye, bare-chested and lounging on her bed, a tall Pele’s Melee in hand.

“At least you’re wearing shorts,” I mumbled.

“Of course I am. You’re the Hewitt in charge of pornography.”

“Adelé Nightingale is not a pornographer,” I said indignantly. “I write romance fiction.”

“Yeah, right,” father and son said in unison, and Chris dropped the clipboard onto the coffee table.

“Surf’s up!” he informed us and bounded down the porch stairs.

I sighed dramatically, reminded Wilson I would require a very large pink drink when the torture was over, and went inside to change into my swimsuit. But Wilson did not follow. In fact, he was still studying Tessie’s clipboard when I stepped back onto the porch.

“Aren’t you coming?” I asked.

“Go ahead,” he said distractedly, his eyes still on the clipboard. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

Testimony to how much I wanted the lesson to be over and the pink drinks to be flowing, I didn’t argue and flip-flopped my unwilling body down to beach.

***

Pink drinks, pink drinks, pink drinks, I thought to myself over and over as Chris kept drilling me to “Paddle, paddle, paddle already!”

He had gotten Mother and me into the water, and we were furiously paddle, paddle, paddling to catch a wave when Louise arrived.

“Bee Bee?” I shouted over the waves and she shook her head no.

No?

Another wave slammed into me. Or more accurately, slammed into my board, which in turn, slammed into my head. Wilson showed up just in time to watch me almost drown. He gave me a thumbs up when I reemerged from the watery depths, and commenced demonstrating how handy upper body strength can be. The show-off barely had to paddle at all before catching a wave. And then another. He wasn’t standing up, but he was clearly his son’s star pupil.

I was deciding how jealous I should feel when yet another wave slammed my surfboard into the side of my head, and I went under again. Was this fun or what?

I remerged to see Wilson standing up. Up!

“He’s up!” I shouted and pointed. “He’s hanging ten!”

“Fantastical!” Louise shouted back, and my mother slapped her surfboard in glee as Chris joined Wilson for a father-son surfing-duo moment.

Dare I say, it really was a moment? I gave both of the Ryes my most joyful smile, and they both returned my effort. Both of them.

We decided to quit while we were ahead. Chris helped my mother, Louise and I managed to get ourselves in to shore, and Wilson came in riding another wave and grinning from ear to ear.

We women were too exhausted to congratulate the guy properly, however. More or less in unison, we staggered up the beach, rid ourselves of the stupid surfboards, and dropped, knees first, into the sand. It took us about three seconds to realize kneeling wasn’t going to cut it. Again in unison, we twirled ourselves around and got horizontal. The sand in our hair be damned.

I reached out blindly and found my mother’s hand. “Are you okay?” I asked.

“Fine,” she said in a rather small voice. “But I do believe I’ll sleep well tonight.”

I reached out my other hand to Louise. “How about you?” I asked.

“Pink drinks,” she mumbled. “An enormous vat of them.”

“Pink drinks!” Chris said enthusiastically from above us, and I heard his young feet racing off, hopefully toward the tiki bar, as Wilson plopped down somewhere near my feet. I tapped one of his knees with my right foot. “Congratulations, Captain Rye.”

He tickled a few of my toes and insisted I would soon be hanging ten myself.

Me hanging ten was about as likely as Delta Touchette sailing off into the sunset with Urquit Snodgrass, but I was too weak to argue.

***

We had managed to sit up, and were even offering my triumphant beau a few super slow-motion high fives, when Chris returned with a drink-laden tray.

Mother offered an enthusiastic thanks as he handed her the first plastic glass of Pele’s Melee. “And look at the color, girls. They’re pink again.”

Louise and I stared at our decidedly pink drinks as Tessie took her first sip. “Oh! Taste them, too,” she said. “Ki got the recipe right this time.”

Sure enough, the drinks were perfect—Davy Atwell perfect.

“Bethany saw how unhappy you guys were with the drinks last night,” Chris explained. “She’s up there right now, teaching Ki what to do before the evening rush starts. She says it’s getting the guava juice just right. It’s what makes them pink.”

Wilson lowered his glass. “Bethany Iverson knows how to make a decent pink drink?”

“Decent?” Louise wiggled her Pele’s Melee. “Earth to Wilson! Clearly the woman knows a lot more than that. These are perfect!”

No one argued, and as the rest of us enjoyed our beverages, sipping gratefully and emitting the occasional squeak, Chris regaled us with the events of his busy day. Bethany had been thrilled to spend some time with him and had talked non-stop—kind of like Chris himself was doing. He described the coral reef surrounding Halo Beach, which apparently was teeming with sea life.

“I’ve got to get you geezers snorkeling,” he said and turned to his father. “The butterfly fish make those shirts you keep wearing look dull.”

Wilson defended his wardrobe only briefly and reminded his son of his main purpose with Bethany. “What did she have to say about the Wacky Gardens” He pointed toward the bungalows and Chris glanced over at Misty Breezes.

“She complained a lot about her boss.”

“Who can blame her?” I said. “Ki is impossible.”

“No, Jessie. It’s Buster that bugs her. Bethany says he makes stupid mistakes.”

“Such as?” Wilson asked.

“Well, like he’s always wasting time in the garden and not really doing anything. And he hired that Rachel Tate woman Faye was telling us about. Bethany really didn’t like Rachel. And here’s the dirt.” Chris turned to me. “Because I know you live for dirt.”

I rolled my eyes and quietly sipped my Pele’s Melee.

“The dirt?” Louise reminded him.

“Rachel definitely dated Davy. Remember what Faye said this morning? Well, Bethany definitely knows for sure.”

“Intriguing!” Louise said. “Since we now know Carmen Dupree also dated him.”

“We’re not sure about that,” Wilson reminded her, but Louise wasn’t listening.

“I’m seeing a love triangle,” she said. She passed her glass to my mother and used both hands to draw another of her imaginary triangles in the air.

I thought about this new triangle. “Rachel, Carmen, and Davy?” I asked.

“Exactly, Jessica! Nothing but trouble, I tell you. Nothing, nothing, nothi—”

“What about Bethany?” Wilson interrupted. He held up his Pele’s Melee, and we all blinked at the perfectly pink beverage. “Bethany and Davy,” he elaborated. “Think about it, people.”

Chapter 15

“Bee Bee’s a clue.” I leaned over Buster Okolo’s brand new pool table, took aim, and broke. “I can feel it in my bones,” I said as the four ball disappeared. “I’m calling solids, by the way.”

Wilson turned around from the game room window in time to see the six ball sink. “Bethany’s still up there talking to Ki.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of the tiki bar. “Maybe we should be there, too.”

I argued that one happy hour spent with Ki Okolo had been plenty for me. “Besides, Wilson, you promised me a game. You know I need to think.”

“Jessie always does her best thinking at a pool table.” Mother had tiptoed into the room. “Who’s winning?” she asked as she closed the door behind her. “And who killed poor Davy Atwell?”

Wilson frowned at the yellow ball as it disappeared and asked Tessie how she knew where to find us.

“Intuition,” she answered. “I was about to lie down for a few minutes after my shower. But I just knew Jessie would be in here thinking. You don’t mind if I join you?”

We assured her three heads were better than two, and while Wilson took a turn at the table, I stepped over to the window to take a turn at spying on the tiki bar. Sure enough, Bethany was still talking to Ki—showing him something about the blender.

“I’m surprised Louise isn’t up there,” I said. “But perhaps she’s back to Bee Bee hunting.”